Mozart piano concertos
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| Number of concertos: | 23 |
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| Instrumentation: | Piano and orchestra |
| Dates of composition: | 1773–1791 |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote 23 original concertos for piano and orchestra. These works, many of which Mozart composed for himself to play in the Vienna concert series of 1784–86, held special importance for him. For a long time relatively neglected, they are recognised as among his greatest achievements. They were championed by Donald Francis Tovey in his Essay on the Classical Concerto in 1903, and later by Cuthbert Girdlestone and Arthur Hutchings in 1940 (originally published in French) and 1948, respectively. Hans Tischler published a structural and thematic analysis of the concertos in 1966, followed by the works by Charles Rosen, and Leeson and Robert Levin. The first complete edition in print was not until that of Richault from around 1850; since then the scores and autographs have become widely available.
Concerto No. 7 is for three (or two) pianos and orchestra, and No. 10 is for 2 pianos and orchestra, leaving 21 original concertos for one piano and orchestra.
Early keyboard concertos were written by, among others, C. P. E. Bach, J. C. Bach, Soler, Wagenseil, Schobert, Vanhall and Haydn. Earlier still, in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto by J. S. Bach, the keyboard part is elevated to the most prominent position among the instruments. These works, with their alternation of orchestral tuttis and passages for solo display, in turn owe their structure to the tradition of Baroque operatic arias, from which the first movements of Mozart's piano concertos inherited their basic ritornellic form. A similar structure can also be seen in the violin concerti of, for example, Vivaldi, who established the form, along with the three-movement concerto structure, and Viotti, wherein the concerto is divided into six sections. The keyboard parts of the concertos were almost invariably based on material presented in the ritornelli, and it was probably J. C. Bach, whom Mozart admired, who introduced the structural innovation of allowing the keyboard to introduce new thematic material in its first entry.
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